Rhode Island: 27.5K QHPs thru 12/03 (includes auto-renewals)

I've been posting so many stories about the ugly implications of the ACA being repealed that it's kind of nice to get back to actually reporting on the number of people enrolling for ACA coverage again (hey, it's right there in the title of this site and everything...)

Rhode Island, which issued regular weekly enrollment reports last year, has been unusually silent so far this year...until today:

HealthSource RI (HSRI) has released certain enrollment, demographic and volume data through Saturday, December 3, 2016 for Open Enrollment.

INDIVIDUAL/FAMILY ENROLLMENT
As of December 3, 2016

• 27,474 individuals are enrolled in 2017 coverage through HSRI, paid and unpaid.
• The majority of these individuals are 2016 HSRI enrollees that were auto-renewed into a 2017 plan.
• 991 of the 27,474 individuals have selected a plan for 2017 coverage, and are new to HSRI this year or returning after being enrolled with HSRI at some point prior.
• 2,022 of the 27,474 individuals are enrolled in 2017 coverage through HSRI, and have paid their first month’s premium.

That second point is important: Most states don't actually put through auto-renewals until after the 12/15 (or 12/23 in some states) deadline for January coverage. Like Connecticut, however, Rhode Island has already automatically renewed most of their enrollees for 2017 coverage...and simply subtracts from this number those who actively choose not to renew coverage. As a result, both Connecticut and Rhode Island give the appearance of being well ahead of 2017 enrollment projections at this point, even though that might not hold up after we get past the mid-December milestone. That new enrollment number appears extremely low (just 3.6%), but again, that's hard to tell with all of the current enrollees being lumped together.

For comparison, as of 12/05/15 last year, Rhode Island was reporting 31,500 enrollees (1,592 of them new) using the same methodology, so technically they're running about 13% behind last year, although the extra two days can make a big difference (last year those 2 days made up around 3.5% of total #OE3 enrollments; in the case of Rhode Island that translated to roughly 1,180 people).

SHOP ENROLLMENT

• As of December 3, 2016
• Small employer accounts created: 2,460
• Small employer applications completed: 986
• Small employer enrollment (paid): 592
• These employers represent 4,749 covered lives
• 91% of small employers are enrolled in the Full Choice Model.
• 90% SHOP renewal rate (2016 to date).

Given how little attention most ACA articles pay to the SHOP program (even I've mostly stopped writing about it), it's noteworthy that in Rhode Island, SHOP enrollment is actually running at around 17% the rate of individual QHP enrollment, which is pretty impressive.